The Origins of Philosophy

From the Hellenistic age down to our own, Aristotle and Plato have been very widely studied in "the West." Aristotle studied under Plato; Plato and others sat adoringly at the feet of Socrates; Socrates learned among the last of the pre-Socratics; and the first pre-Socratics, as we all know, sprang, fully-formed and philosophizing away, from the brow of Zeus.

What?! There was no philosophy before the pre-Socratics? Yes, that's exactly what it says here, on p 10 of Wisdom of the West by Bertrand Russell, London, 1959:

"Philosophy and science, as we now know them, are Greek inventions[...]Philosophy and science begin with Thales of Miletus in the early sixth century BC."

Okay then. That's all cleared up. And what exactly is philosophy? Russell covers that too, same book, same page:

"Philosophy begins when someone asks a general question."

Got it!

Seriously, though: although I find Russell to be eminently sensible almost all of the time, what he is saying here is absurd. Even though, as far as I have been able to determine -- I don't know how far that is -- very few "Western" scholars seem to be saying anything different about how philosophy, or at least "Western" philosophy, began.

One of the few exceptions is Arthur Schopenhauer. In his Parerga und Paralipomena, part I, in the chapter "Fragmente zur Geschichte der Philosophie," in the section on the Pre-Socratics (Saemtliche Werke, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt aM, 4th printing, 1996, vol 4, pp 45-56), Schopenhauer points out how some of the positions of the pre-Socratics are anticipated in Egypt and in the Brahmanic philosophy of the Vedas. He even mentions (p 56) Apuleius' assertion that Pythagoras had traveled as far as India, and been personally schooled by Brahmans.

You might say that it's absurd to accept Apuleius' account, written well over half a millennium after Pythagoras' death, as anything more than an amusing anecdote. And you might be right about that. But is it more absurd than assuming that no Brahmanic, or Egyptian, or Phoenician, or Babylonian, or other philosophy found its way to Greece before the career of Thales was over?

I submit that what began with the Greek pre-Socratics is that the individual tidbits of wisdom began to be preserved in connection with the names of individual wise people. A very significant development, and even more so to authors concerned about receiving the proper credit for their work than it may be to the public at large.

But to arbitrarily advance several thousand large steps past that and flatly assert that before Thlaes, no-one, anywhere, had ever stopped and asked what it all means, is, I must say so in all directness, thoroughly absurd.

And I say so even though I have only found one Western philosopher, Schopenhauer, who also says so. I have found many "Eastern" scholars, and laypeople from all parts of the Earth, who agree with me on this point. It's not the only point in which I feel that Schopenhauer and I are a bit lonely. There's also the matter of Hegel. There are so very many perfectly intelligent scholars who admire Hegel so very much. And yet, when I read Hegel, I see what Schopenhauer describes: an empty-headed charlatan, a pseudo-intellectual par excellence, a sheer horse's ass who is shamelessly wasting everybody's time. A Sam Harris of the early 19th century.

There is yet another point where I find myself and many, many other laypeople on one side, and almost every single Western scholar on the other: the scholars almost all state quite flatly that it is quite certain that Jesus existed, and is not merely a fictional character in a myth, a character perhaps cobbled together from the biographies of John the Baptist and some other real people.

I do not take it at all lightly when the academic consensus is so overwhelmingly against me. It troubles me, it truly does. But no academic consensus will persuade me to stop thinking for myself.

Foreigners Of Every Kind

Percival Spear (yes, his name really was Percival Spear), a 20th-century English historian who spent much of his life living in and writing about India, who taught with distinction both in India and England, including a stint at Cambridge University, who served in the government of India for several years in the 1940's, writes of the Mughal Empire on page 67 of his book India, Pakistan and the West, 4th ed, Oxford University Press, 1967:

"A significant sign of greatness was the welcome afforded to foreigners of every kind from Portugese Jesuits to French jewelers, and the interest shown not only in foreign novelties like watches and mechanical toys, but in ideas as well. Akbar delighted in Jesuit discussions of their faith and Dara Shikoh ordered translations both of the gospels and of the Upanishads."

The Mughal Empire was a regime which ruled much of modern-day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan from the 16th to the 19th century. Akbar was a Mughal Emperor and Dara Shikoh a Mughal crown Prince. The Upanishads are the Sanskrit texts which contain the core philosophy of Hinduism.

All of the most civilized places in human history have been especially welcoming to people from all over over the world. New York City, for example, is brilliant in very large part because it welcomes people from all over the world and celebrates their cultures. The Chinese, Italian, Puerto Rican, Irish, Brazilian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Mexican, Bengali, Hindi, Bangladeshi, Korean, Dominican, Japanese, Cuban, Russian and Ukrainian communities in the city are just a few of the largest examples of the results of this welcoming and nurturing environment.

Imagine someone who lived an entire long life in New York City, exposed on a daily basis to that rich variety of languages, having such a wonderful variety of ethnic cuisines always within easy reach, having the privilege of being able to learn from people of such varied backgrounds -- imagine someone spending a lifetime in such a wonderful place, and still being so dense as to embrace the most primitive and xenophonic parts of American culture. Sad.